A CRIME expert has said the current heatwave may be contributing to a sharp rise in the number of attempted child abductions, after three further incidents involving teenage girls.

Police are investigating reports of a man who twice tried to snatch teenage girls in Hartlepool on Monday night.

That same evening, a 14-year-old girl in Thornaby, Teesside, was dragged towards a car before she struggled free.

The incidents came only days after a double child abduction attempt in Darlington brought the total number of incidents in the town to eight in a month.

And on Sunday, a 15-year-old girl was chased along Brierton Lane, in Hartlepool, by a man demanding sex.

The abduction attempts mainly involve girls, some as young as eight, although a 12-year-old boy was reportedly approached by a man driving a white van in Darlington two weeks ago.

Jill Radford, a professor of criminology from the University of Teesside, said the rise in abduction attempts had coincided with the recent heatwave.

She said: "The type of men who are predisposed to this kind of behaviour see girls wearing short skirts and summer dresses and cannot cope with it.

"They assume they are wearing these outfits for them and lose self-control. It is an extremely worrying, but very observable, trend."

In the Thornaby incident, the 14-year-old girl was walking alone along Trenchard Avenue when she was grabbed by a man in a red saloon car.

He was in his early twenties, of mixed race with black hair, long on top and shaved around the sides.

In one of the Hartlepool incidents, a man approached two 13-year-old girls and began talking to them, at about 7.45pm in Oxford Road.

When he began cuddling one of them, they fled.

The second incident in the town happened nearby at about 8.30pm, when the same man is believed to have approached two girls, aged 13 and 15.

Anyone with information on any of the incidents has been asked to call police on (01642) 326326.